Thornwatch: The Color of Liberty
Dawn's Early Light The young soldier was watching the clouds roll by when he spotted them. At first they looked like gulls flying along the horizon. Then the sounds came: the sputtering of the engines, the sheer volume of their speed, and the scarring cacophony of the bombs dropping from their bays. Too shocked to react, the young soldier did little to avoid the payload crashing only a few feet behind him. Blasted forward, the world went black as he was knocked into the water below. He'd regain consciousness shortly after being dragged ashore. It'd still be hours before the numbness in his ears would quell enough for him to hear again. Bombs Bursting In Air They said I was lucky to be alive. At first I didn't believe them when they told me I'd be back on my feet in four days, much less back on the front-lines in five. The shrapnel from the air strike had done one over on me. The sharp drop into the water below should have bee more than enough on its own. If I were a more religious man I'd be thanking the Lord Almighty for saving my life. Then again, most of my Catholic shipmates survived the Japanese attack from being away from the harbor, attending Mass and the church near base, so maybe if I were more religious I wouldn't have so much scrap metal lodged in my joints. The attack on Pearl Harbor took all of us by surprise, though I'm just surprised it didn't kill me. It's a miracle I will not take for granted. Too many men lost their lives in that harbor. If I can protect that many souls from their own untimely deaths, I'll have done right by my fallen brothers. Over The Ramparts We Watched The soldier couldn't remember how long he had been marching. He told himself it had been too long. The innocent women and children were battered and bruised from the rigid cadence. The soldier swore he could see the image of their spirits breaking reflected in their pained glances. The soldier grimaced, hating himself for having a part in their suffering. Land of the Free There is no order in this war. I see it now. No justice. Hitler and his kindred spirit Mussolini merit the swift hand of any able-bodied man strong enough to leave his mark, but as the war escalates with Japan I see more and more atrocities committed in the name of America than I see from "our" imperialistic foe. I love Lady Liberty and every thing she stands for. I just don't think she would stand for this. The Japanese have begun to resort to crashing their planes and pilots into our defenses. To force another human being so far back into a corner that they could even conceive of such a thing.... it's abominable. Home of the Brave I requested a transfer and I got it. I'm to report for Operation Overlord across the pond. Finally I won't have Lady Liberty turning her back on me. It's not about national pride anymore. It's about what that national pride should stem from: a steadfast oath of freedom for all. I keep finding myself looking around at the downtrodden faces of the men who stand beside me. These men are lost, hundreds of thousands of miles away from home. Perhaps the best way to protect these men and their precious gift of life is to end this war no matter what the stakes. Then, at least, we can all find our ways home. All men, however strong or hardened, cannot escape the loneliness of being misplaced like this. Our Flag Was Still There Carnage. Splattered with the blood of his countrymen, old wounds reopened as new wounds dug deep into the young soldier's flesh. Sound was muffled as the sheer volume of the battlefield deafened its inhabitants. The solider pushed the line of men behind him as far as he could, but there as some pains no mortal man can endure. By the time his knees hit the sand, his vision had already begun to fade. Thinking these fleeting moments to be his last, he turned to warn the men behind him, but they had fallen long before. All that remained was the bullet-laden flag flapping from atop the boat which brought them to the slaughter. There the flag was, standing strong. And yet the stars did not shield them; the stripes did nothing to stop the death of the men defending it. The solider realized the flag would always be there, flapping aimlessly in the breeze as men gave up everything to keep it safe. The soldier swore he could hear Lady Liberty weeping from across the ocean as men laid down their lives for a piece of fabric. To her, these men never had the chance to serve their higher purpose. They died defending a cloth when they should have been her champions, sweeping across the world bearing no banners but the blood of the oppressor and the cheerful tears of the freed, until no man could live in fear again. But for these now fallen warriors her tablet was their epitaph; her torch their funeral pyre. The soldier knew the sadness Liberty held for him; he felt her disappointment. But he was Lost now. Lost among the corpses of men too far from home. Of course, the bodies of the Lost tend to drift towards shores far more foreign than Normandy... What happens next can be found in Thornwatch: Foreign Shores Category:Fiction